Port of my Call
by Dal Niente
Summary: "He hates this. Wants to hurt—something, wants to—help; he wants to help; David is in pain and Frank can do precisely nothing about it and he hates that." There's a blowjob, but it isn't terribly explicit, so I'm going with a T rating. LMK if I should change it.


I dunno, folks. I watched season 1 of the Punisher a while back and had some feelings about it, and so I went looking for fanfiction, found some, found one which either wasn't tagged correctly or I missed the tags on, and got Uncomfortable about it. So I wrote this pretty much to say, "NO, if Frank snapped in this episode, I think it would go more like THIS." You know, just scratch an itch and make myself feel better, basically. And then I left it in my Google Drive for like a year and a half and I just want it out of my head and into the world already; you know how it is.

Title from MIKA's "Underwater."

* * *

He's hoping Lieberman wasn't watching. All the way back to the power plant, Frank is hoping against fucking hope Lieberman didn't see Sarah kiss him. This is a stupid thing to hope and Frank knows it, because _of course_ Lieberman would be watching, would have fucking flown to his computers to make sure his family was okay as soon as the screens lit back up; he knows how much time Lieberman spends in front of them, watching, even when Frank isn't over at the house.

So, well, maybe it isn't hope. Maybe it's just wishing. Doesn't make it any less stupid.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Lieberman is a son of a bitch, but that doesn't mean Frank wants to—well, okay, he does want to hurt him, sometimes. If he's being honest. But not like this; not with this. Because _yeah _he's a son of a bitch, but he is also sort of a friend, and he did give Frank the closest thing to hope he's seen in ages, and using his wife to get to him this way would just be low. Not to mention disrespectful to Sarah.

Stupid. Of course Lieberman was watching. Lieberman's _always_ watching. Watching is what Lieberman _does_.

And—_yep_, there he is, like a sap: ratty hood up over ratty curls, slumped face-down on his keyboard in front of—yep again, the still image of Sarah kissing Frank. Fantastic. Just fabulous. _Fuck_.

"Jesus christ," he mutters, but there's nothing else for it. He raises his voice. "I guess you saw that, huh?"

There's an odd little pattern of red marks on the side of Lieberman's face when he sits up. Keyboard marks, Frank realizes, after a half-second's bewildered glancing around. Oh! And there's his whiskey glass. And the bottle. Fantastic again, batting a thousand, today could not get any worse. Because, yeah, _this_ is exactly what he needs right now: Lieberman drunk and jealous and spoiling for a fight, when literally all Frank wants to do is crawl into a hole someplace dark, curl up, and wait for his thoughts to settle. Sarah caught him completely by surprise with that kiss, and Frank…doesn't do so hot with surprises, these days.

"Why did you get her flowers?" Lieberman's eyes are clear, but his voice is slurred. Confused. _Genuinely _confused, which throws Frank for another loop, because he was expecting—well. Not confusion. Probably some shouting, maybe even tears. Recriminations. Accusations. _Why did you get her flowers_ isn't any of those things, really, and it makes him hesitate. Makes him jumpy.

He goes for a question. Questions can't be argued with. "'Cause I needed an excuse to be there, right?"

Because he didn't ask to be kissed. Flowers aren't asking to be kissed. Neither is wine. Sure, sometimes they're part of that intricate social dance, but Frank is pretty sure he hasn't done too much to encourage that kind of thinking. He's found excuses to hang around because it makes Lieberman twitch, but hanging around isn't the same as flirting. He hasn't been flirting. He's pretty sure.

Lieberman flops back in his chair, eyes sliding open to stare blearily up at the ceiling. "Peonies, huh?" he says, still not accusing, and Frank makes an affirmative sort of noise. "Ha."

"Maria's favorite," Frank offers, after a second. He is—just—totally at sea, here. "So..."

"Sarah's favorite, too, I guess," Lieberman says, and then laughs, an odd, bitter sound that Frank doesn't like. "Who knew?"

Okay, no. He has no idea how to do this. Is Lieberman angry? He doesn't _seem _angry; he seems kind of mildly drunk and weirdly fixated on the flowers; if he's going to yell, Frank would really rather he just go ahead and get it over with. Is he supposed to apologize? He chafes at the idea; this wasn't his fault. Lieberman said, _go_, so he went. But he'd needed an excuse; that wasn't a lie. And flowers are an excuse. This wasn't his fault.

He looks around again, antsy, upset. Remembers the enchiladas and shoves them at his erstwhile roommate like some kind of pathetic Tupperware peace offering. "I, uh. Brought you these," he says. "They're—"

"Yeah I know what they are, thanks, Frank." Lieberman is loud when he cuts him off, and yeah, yep, there we go, he's angry. Shit.

Frank takes a breath, starts to gear himself up to get into it—but then Lieberman deflates, adds, in a quieter voice, "I really love these things," and _would you just make up your goddamned mind?_

So he says nothing, just sighs and drops his head. _Come on,_ he thinks. _Come the fuck on_. But Lieberman sighs, too, instead of shouts, so Frank looks up.

"You know, I don't, uh. I don't blame you for kissing her." He's pouring more whiskey, sort of shrugging. Not looking at him. "She's a beautiful woman. And, uh..."

_I didn't kiss her_, Frank wants to say, but the odd, wry twist of Lieberman's mouth stops him. Lieberman gives a strange little cough and glances up him, then back down at his drink as he lifts it. "I don't blame her, either. I don't."

The last two words are spoken into the glass, hollow. Frank almost snorts. "That's how we're dealing with this, huh?"

(He mostly ignores the words themselves in favor of the actions alongside which they were delivered. But. Interesting juxtaposition between _I don't blame you; she's a beautiful woman_ and _I don't blame her, either_. Huh.)

He gets another shrug, something that looks like a smile but doesn't reach his eyes. "Mmm," Lieberman hums, affirmative. "This is how I'm dealing with this." Laughs at his cup again, then drains it.

Drinking. Great way to not deal with shit you don't want to deal with. Honestly, Frank would prefer yelling; between having a screaming fight and watching yet another of his contemporaries drown himself in the bottom of a bottle, he'll pick the former any day of the week. Frank's not exactly the poster boy for healthy coping mechanisms, but Lieberman can't—he knows Lieberman can't be doing this with any kind of good outcome—watch his wife kiss his friend and talk about moving on and—and _god_, Frank knows just how he must have looked when she'd said that; he's seen how David looks at those screens. Like a fucking spaniel that's been kicked. Like he's been stabbed. And then Sarah kissed him, and all he could think was _no_ and _twist the knife_ and _wrong_.

She'd backed off immediately, thankfully. Had known it was a mistake as soon as he turned his face away. She didn't push, which. Good. That was good. And so now here's David _fucking _Lieberman refusing to blame Frank, and—and that's fair—of course, that's fair; this isn't Frank's fault.

He turns to skulk over to his cot, blood thrumming in his ears. But.

But. He hates this. Wants to hurt—something, wants to—help; he wants to help; David is in pain and Frank can do precisely nothing about it and he _hates that_. Hates it. And David doesn't even have the decency to get really angry about it! If he would get angry, if he'd shout and throw things, well then at least he'd be dealing with it. But no. _No_, he's just going to _sit_, instead, and get _drunk again_, and Frank can do nothing. If he could find words then maybe he could say something helpful, but words don't come easily, these days. These days, Frank's mind is mostly too scattered for words. He's been drowning for so long he's pretty much learned to swim, but he still doesn't have much breath to spare for words.

He's also not one for doing nothing. He is exceptionally bad at doing nothing. On the battlefield, sure, doing nothing is certainly better than doing something stupid, but this isn't a battlefield; this is the empty, chilly basement of a disused power plant and there's really no comparison.

So his mind is swimming and he can still smell Sarah's hair and there's wine in the back of his throat, sharp and bitter like bile, and he thinks—well, he can't do nothing so he'll do—anything, really, if it makes Lieberman stop looking like he's been fucking gutted. Make him angry. Distract him. Do—say something, anything, helpful or otherwise; gotta be better than nothing. Words.

He scowls and turns back around. "No."

Lieberman blinks up at him, looking nonplussed. Frank can't really blame him; arguing is not usually their thing. Usually, when Frank doesn't like something, he just disappears until it's over. Well, not this time. This is too weird. Things are too weird. Hell if he knows how to fix it, but—he's got to try, hasn't he? He's got to try.

"No," he says again, and fully abandons their fragile script. He grabs Lieberman by the front of his hoodie, hauls him up to his feet.

"Frank—whoa, what the hell."

"No, you don't blame me, that's right you don't blame me," Frank snarls, low, spitting out whatever words will come; "I didn't kiss her. I didn't—she kissed me, you saw," he says, shoving Lieberman a few steps away from him and pointing at the screen. "You _saw_. I didn't, I wouldn't."

"Frank," Lieberman says, drawing his name out as he stumbles, reaching for the whiskey again, "Frank, Frank. I said, I don't blame you. I don't! She's...a very sensual woman, you know, and she's...you know, like she said, moving on. It's, it's fine. 'S to be expected." He offers up another joyless half-smile. "So, y'know. Hey. It's fine."

"It's not," Frank snaps, because _jesus_, these two idiots are completely stupid for each other. Sarah's not moving on, no matter what she says, and Lieberman is the definition of a stick in the mud. And last night Frank dreamed _again_ about both of them getting splattered all over the wall with the rest of his family and it is _not fine_. "It's not. You think—you think that was a kiss, you think I kissed her? Put the bottle down."

"I'm—"

"I said put it down." David is taller but he's on the drunker side of tipsy, and anyway Frank is faster and stronger by several orders of magnitude. The plastic bottle goes scudding away across the floor and suddenly one of Frank's hands is clenched in David's hair, the other twisted in the back of his hoodie instead of the front.

Startled, David looks at him, sees the angry set of his jaw, the way his eyes have shuttered and gone dark.

"You said," Frank says lowly, glaring at David's chin. "You said. You don't blame her, either. Why."

"—I'm _dead_," David says, after a moment, his whole body stiff, expecting to get hit at any second. Hit, thrown, slammed into something. "I've been dead for a year. And you're..." Frank glances at him. Raises his eyebrows. He trails off, settles on, "Nice."

Frank scoffs a laugh and tightens his grip. Not enough to hurt, just enough to get David's attention if he doesn't already have it. "I'm not _nice_."

"You've, you've been nice to her," David stammers, "you've been, you've been...understanding, and sure, you've been nice and, I mean, your shoulders are..."

Frank blinks, looks at him fully, startled. "My _shoulders?_"

"Enormous," David says, a little defensively, and tenses. But it's true. They are.

Frank stares at him, and then he leans in. Alarmed, David jerks back, or tries to, but Frank is too strong. David isn't going anywhere, not with Frank's hand in his hair like that.

"Stop me," Frank says, his voice a low rumble.

"What?"

"Stop me," he rasps, "if you want to," and then—holy _shit_, okay, this is a kiss, Frank is kissing him. His lips are soft, unexpectedly, and David gasps him closer and opens his mouth.

Living with Frank has been sort of like living with a panther: strong, dangerous, difficult to predict. David is more than a little afraid of what his friend can do. More than a little afraid of his temper. But this? _Stop me?_ It was tantamount to asking permission. The Punisher, asking permission? What the hell. What even the hell.

He shakes himself a little, tries to collect his fuzzy thoughts. Frank Castle is kissing him, one hand in his hair and the other on—his hip, now. David has his hands on his back. Shit, is Frank gay, is that why he was so insistent about not kissing Sarah? No, no; the man gets fucking poetic every time he mentions Maria. So, he's bi, too, then. Must be. But then why—

Frank pulls back, dark gaze flashing away, then in, then away again. David can't look at him and think straight, so he closes his eyes instead.

"Ah," he says, _gee, that's eloquent_, and clears his throat. "Uh. You. That was." He frowns.

"You okay?"

He almost laughs at the absurdity of it. "I'm. _Yeah_. Yeah, I'm..."

"Sorry." After a moment, Frank lets go and steps back. David, blinking his eyes open, almost follows him—the electrical plant is always chilly, and Frank was warm. He likes warm. He's so sick of being cold.

"No—hey, no, don't be." He pauses, takes a deep breath. Frank has turned sort of away and he's doing that thing with his jaw, jutting it repeatedly forward like he's chewing on gristle, like he wants to say something but can't remember how. "You, uh. Okay. You didn't kiss her, I get it."

"I wouldn't." Frank glances at him, shakes his head a couple times, glares away at the wall. "I wouldn't do that. She's—she's your wife. I wouldn't do that."

"You care about her, though," David points out, because he's half-drunk and also a glutton for punishment, probably, otherwise he would have shut up. "I know you do, come on."

Frank looks at him, then finally rolls his eyes and relaxes his stance a little. "_Jesus_, Lieberman," he says. "Yeah, I care about her. And your damn kids. They're your family; of course I care about them."

Oh.

Oh, but that—oh, shit. _Shit_.

"Oh," David says, the bottom dropping out of his stomach. "Oh."

"Yeah, _oh_." He rubs his chin. Jerks a shrug. "No one to blame, okay? Is what it is."

David stares at him for another moment, then turns away, shaking his head. He can't deal with this, not right now, not without another drink to ease the realization down. He drops into a crouch, looks around until he sees the bottle. There, near the stairs up to their sleeping area. Aha.

Frank's voice follows him away from the computers. "You're just hell-bent on getting drunk, huh."

"Uh...yeah," he calls back, "pretty much, yeah, that was the plan."

Frank makes a disgruntled noise. And then he—he's _there_, his shoulder in David's ribs, lifting him off his feet; there's a step-step-step up the shallow stairs and then David is crashing onto his ass on his cot, the whiskey entirely forgotten.

"What—"

"No," Frank's rusty voice rasps as he looms over him. "Not how it goes. Not this time."

For a moment, David sits frozen, staring up at his odd roommate. Frank has a way of standing with his legs apart and his arms held away from his sides that gives him what can only be described as an aura. He's always perilous, but when he stands like that, it means he's getting ready to move—and when Frank moves, it's usually to bring hurt down on someone, somewhere.

He moves. And David flinches back, but—

Warm hands grip his hips, steadying him. "Whoa," Frank says, "hey," and dips just his thumbs into the tops of David's jeans and briefs, skin to skin.

David stares at him. Frank stares—forward and down, somewhere around David's navel. He's gone to his knees on the floor.

"You scared of me?"

David scoffs a laugh. "I'd be crazy if I wasn't," he says.

Frank's jaw clenches. He pulls his hands away, rocks back on his heels, stands up, steps back.

"Hey—hey, what?" David blurts, dismayed. "No, what are you—"

Frank stands and breathes. He isn't even sure where he's going with this, but he knows one thing clearly and certainly: if Lieberman is afraid of him, he's not taking this any further. There's a dangerous imbalance, there, and he isn't touching it with a ten-foot pole.

"Okay, so, say I'm not scared," Lieberman says, after a couple seconds. "What happens if I say I'm not scared?"

Frank glares down at him. "What happens is I don't believe you."

"Yeah, okay, just..." Lieberman wets his lips. "Uh. How do we get back to, uh, you...you with your hands in my pants? What was that? Can...can we go back to that?" Frank heaves a long sigh and drops his chin to his chest. Lieberman keeps talking. "Seriously, uh, because that looked like—and when, when you kissed me, I thought you, I thought—"

He lifts a hand. "Okay," he says, and just like that, Lieberman shuts up. Huh. First time that's ever fucking worked. "Okay," he says again, more quietly, and looks at him. "But—you. Need to know. I need you to know I will not hurt you." Lieberman frowns. Blinks. Frank jerks his chin sideways, uncomfortable. "Not like this," he says. "Not ever."

Lieberman swallows hard. "Frank, you...where is this...?" He trails off, blinks a few times. "Yeah, I mean. Okay." He nods. "I get it, yeah."

Frank looks at him for a long few seconds, breathing through his nose. "You'll tell me to stop," he says, and Lieberman nods again.

"Yeah, absolutely."

He waits a moment longer, then nods to himself. Okay. Okay. As long as they're clear, that's okay. Jesus, it's been a long time since he's done this. It's been a long time since he's _wanted_ to do this.

"Okay," he says again, and crouches down.

And David—David, for his part, is just supremely baffled. He's not...anything to look at, nothing special, really. Pale, sort of soft. He used to enjoy jogging back when he was able to spend time outdoors without worrying about cameras, but jogging is more cardio than anything else and it's been a long time and _wow holy shit_ okay Frank is kissing him again, shrugging him up on the cot without any apparent effort at all, his mouth moving down David's neck, nudging his sweatshirt aside to bite and lick at the curve of his shoulder while his fingers work David's jeans down over his hips.

He doesn't tell Frank to stop. He doesn't _want_ him to stop. He wouldn't have minded maybe waiting a little, maybe talking about this more, but—what is there to say? What is there to talk about? And Frank has never been one for talking much except on rare occasions, and this...seems like the kind of thing where he might spook and run if he tried to say too much about it.

_She's your wife, I wouldn't do that_, he said; that's fine and dandy, but he'll do this to David? He's Sarah's husband; isn't that still hypocrisy? Possibly. Maybe. But Frank rolls to his own moral code. David's not about to question its boundaries.

Besides. Maybe it's because he's a little drunk—not as drunk as he could be, not as drunk as Frank's ever seen him, not by half—but this doesn't actually feel like cheating. Because Sarah likes Frank, too, doesn't she, even if she thinks his name is Pete. Sarah would approve, maybe. Sarah would—

Good _god_ but it's hard to think about Sarah with his dick in Frank's mouth.

One sun-brown hand presses warm and flat on his stomach. He grips David's leg with his other hand, hard enough David's sure he's going to leave fingerprints. So David—doesn't forget, can't forget—but gives up thinking about Sarah, for a while, in favor of thinking about nothing and twisting his fingers in his sheet and hissing swears between his teeth. Frank is good at what he's doing. Very unexpectedly good, or maybe it's just that it's been a fucking age; either way, David is desperate for him, teeth in his lip and groaning and arching into his mouth. He'd like to touch him—his hair, his hand, his aforementioned huge shoulders—but Frank...doesn't typically like to be touched.

Doesn't like to be touched, but he'll offer up a blowjob like it's nothing, oh sure. Sure. Doesn't like to be touched, but he'll suck a livid red mark onto the skin of David's hip while his hands take over what his mouth was doing for a while.

"Frank," he chokes, and gets a low hum in response, "Frank, holy shit, um. Hey. Can, can I just—" He reaches down, runs trembling fingers around the shell of Frank's ear.

"You," Frank says, in the same low hum as before, as he lifts his head and glares up at David, "never stop talking, huh?"

But his mouth is red and his lips are swollen and David rubs his thumb over the lower one, just because he can, and Frank fucking—fucking _kisses the pad of his thumb_ like it's a goddamned reflex, like he doesn't even know he's done it, and stares at him with his dark angry eyes and, _oh_, David is way more gone on him than he even realized.

"I'll stop," he says, knowing he won't, "do you, do you want...do you want me to stop talking; I'll stop talking, I..." One of Frank's hands suddenly moves up and squeezes as the other one sort of twists on a hard downstroke and David slams his head back into the thin mattress, and then Frank's mouth is on him again, just as suddenly, wet and hot; his rough hands are still on him, one helping his hot mouth, the other working his balls.

David isn't sure if he chokes out a warning or not before he comes. He hopes so. But he's pretty out of his mind, by that point, and not altogether sure if what he's saying is coherent. He's not expecting Frank to swallow; he was figuring he'd just work David into a mess on his stomach, then leave him to clean himself up. But his mouth never leaves him. He even continues for a while after David comes, holding his hips so he won't get bucked off, because David has not stopped hissing _yes, ohfuck, fuckyes_. It's so close to too much, and still somehow not nearly enough.

And then there's a draft of cold air, and the hands on his hips are gone, and David thinks _okay, now he's going to withdraw_. But the mattress sinks, instead, and the cot wobbles as Frank crawls up him. He threads both his big hands into David's hair, buries his face in the side of his neck, settles half on top of and half beside him, and goes still.

Slowly, David wraps his arm up around Frank's much broader back. He can feel Frank's cock poking hard into the side of his leg, but its owner doesn't seem particularly bothered by it.

"Hey," he says, and the muscles in Frank's back pull tight under his hands. David rubs at them a little, uncertain, still sort of dazzled. "Uh. Thanks? Do you...do you want me to..."

"Shut the hell up, Lieberman," Frank warns, not moving.

"Right, sure, okay." He stares up at the cobwebby ceiling, absently petting Frank's back. He's heavy. Warm. Breathing slow and humid against David's throat.

He doesn't feel drunk anymore—mostly what he feels is confused. _What was this_, he wants to ask, _why did you do that? If you weren't going to want anything in return? Why are you still lying on top of me?_

Then he remembers the odd note in Frank's voice when he said _I wouldn't_ and _your family_, and remembers him saying _stop me_, and finding the words—in his weird, rusty way—to say he wouldn't hurt him, not like this, not ever. And David thinks, oh, maybe he does know what this was.

He closes his eyes against the stone in his throat. Someday, he thinks, this is all going to be okay. It's going to be okay, and he's going to get his family safe, and he's going to get Frank safe, too.

He wraps his arms up around his friend, turns his face so he can rub his cheek on the side of Frank's head. Feels him swallow. Doesn't mention it.

_We're going to be okay_, he thinks again. If he tries really hard, he can almost believe it.


End file.
